Life and Death
by ekc293
Summary: "He's always admired her strength, her ability to get things done, even when her heart is breaking." future!fic.


HELLO EVERYONE.  
Europe was fantastic, but it left me with serious writer's block. So I had a challenge for myself awhile ago and figured I should finally do it - listen to a song without words and write a scene for it.  
This is what came out, and I apologize.

(you should listen while you read)

* * *

_Life and Death_, by Michael Giacchino

* * *

He watches her.

He knows he shouldn't. He should be focused on the real reason he's here, the person he's here for, but he can't keep his eyes off of her.

It's sunny, and it shouldn't be. It reminds him all too much of the last time he was in a place like this. It was sunny that day, too. Sunny and it shouldn't have been. Not for how much devastation that day caused. Not for how painful the memory of it is.

He's a writer. He likes symbolism. Days like today should be wrought with thunderstorms and downpours. There should be menacing gray skies with clouds so thick it seems like the sun will never shine again.

But it's sunny. It's sunny and there's a slight breeze blowing around him and all the others standing behind him. It's the type of day that makes him want to open the windows of the loft, the type of day that has him itching to leave the city for the night for the nuance of the Hamptons.

But he can't. He's here. And he can't stop watching her.

He's not waiting for her to fall apart. He knows she won't. Not here. No, she did that three days before when she first found out - In front of her desk when the rest of the precinct had all gone home. He held her on the floor of the 12th, rocking her gently in her arms as she cradled her phone against her stomach, the grief consuming her in a way he'd only seen once before – grief at what she hadn't said, that she hadn't been there, that she hadn't seen it coming. Three days before a day not so unlike today so few years ago that he can still feel her tears on his skin, feel her face on her hands as she clung to him to keep her upright.

He supposes it's unsurprising that her reaction was so similar.

But he held her through it then, and he held her through it three days ago, and since then she's been indomitable. She's done everything she was supposed to, barely batted an eyelash when others would approach her. He watches her as she stood in the receiving line the night before, shook hands with strangers, managed to laugh at things they said. But she's standing here now - Shoulders back, spine straight, hair falling down her back, the wind was so gentle it barely managed to pick it up, her eyes focused ahead of her, just like when she was working.

This was nothing new.

She saw death every day.

Except it was everything.

He'd never been to funeral before when she didn't have her dress blues on, but she's been here before. Probably stood in almost this exact same place nearly 17 years before when she was 19 and devastated and he wonders if she stood as tall then as she does now, her weight balanced on the balls of her feet to keep her heels from sinking into the ground, her chest rising and falling with steady breaths as she listened to the words being spoken.

He hears the people behind him sniffling, he thinks his mother and daughter may be among them, but he can't look away from her. She's not crying - she's a statue. Hands clasped lightly in front of her, locked jaw, Jim's watch ticking so softly he barely notices – She's grace incarnate – all poise and power wrapped up in the soft cotton of her dress.

He watches as she closes her eyes as the man behind the casket talks about how 17 years ago Johanna Beckett was taken so viciously from their lives, from Jim's life, and it was about time that he finally gets another chance in next chapter to hold her again, to kiss her like he never got that chance to do that night he lost his wife, how right it was that they were together again, even if they hadn't expected it to be quite like this.

He watches her so he sees the shift in her demeanor, watches silently as her hands clench for a moment before the one nearest to him drops out of the other's hold, her fingers shaking with all the love she had for her father that she'd never gotten to fully express, the love for both of the parents she had for really so little time as she reaches out for him.

So he moves with her, reaches back to her and folds her slender hand within his own, his heart clenching as she wound the fingers together, squeezing his hand, anchoring him to her as if he would even consider leaving. He wants so badly to move towards her, wrap his arm around her shoulder and pull her into him, shield her from the despair of burying her father when they had had plans to meet up for brunch yesterday, but he knows she won't come easily. She'll fight him. There are strangers around and she has to be the strong one.

She always has been.

So instead he watches her. He watches as he squeezes her hand just lightly enough that he knows she'll feel it. He watches as he flexes his fingers in morse code, telling her he loves he without saying a word, hoping she hears the signal.

She does.

He watches the smile twitch at the corner of her mouth before she smothers it, her eyes sneaking towards him as she squeezes his hand a little bit tighter. Her head falls forward for only a moment before she's back – her mouth a slash of red against her skin, her eyes locked on the splay of red roses on her father's casket, the new marble headstone right next to her mother's. She's back to being the unconquerable woman – the detective who sees death every day - the daughter who refuses to let this, the loss of both of her parents, to hold her back from living her life.

Not anymore. Not this time.

He's always admired her strength, her ability to get things done, even when her heart is breaking.

Because he knows. This is all just a front. When he finally takes her home, when the people are gone and he strips her down, takes off her armor and lays it on the floor at the foot of their bed, when he tucks her into his sheets and curls his body around hers, he'll feel it in the bit of her fingers in his skin, the salt of her tears on the pillows, the silent sobs that will paint themselves against his collarbone.

But he knows her heart is breaking.

She hasn't let go of his hand.


End file.
